Helpful hints for choosing a new dental chair

There’s a lot to think about when purchasing a dental chair for your surgery, especially if you consider that the chair will remain one of essential points of your work and of the practice for the next 10+ years (that’s an incredible 150,000+ hours). Therefore, it needs to be nothing short of perfect! So, we thought we’d pull together our top 5 things to consider when making that all-important purchase.

Trusted partner – When a piece of equipment is so central to your working day and your ability to do your job, it needs to be reliable. When it comes to purchasing your first – or even fifth – dental chair, be sure to do lots of research. Make sure that the product and company you choose have a proven track record in quality and reliability and check that your product has a valuable warranty period – around five years is considered good. Also, make sure that they have a UK-based service department so that if something does go wrong, any problems can be quickly resolved

Ergonomic – The best chairs are designed with both you and the patient in mind. It is essential for your comfort and health that your dental chair allows you to work ergonomically and safely. Look out for chairs with features that are designed to:

give you easy access to your patient;

manoeuvre easily into the right position;

have foot control pedals to free up your hands; and

include a double-articulated headrest which allows you to adapt the chair to the height and body-shape of your patient.

It’s important that your chair enables your body to remain in a neutral position and maximises visibility into the oral cavity during treatment, especially if combined with a durable LED light. Suitability for all the dental team must also be considered, so if you have a mix of right- and left-handed clinicians who use that treatment room, make sure you consider an ambidextrous chair.

Comfortable – An adjustable, comfortable chair can also have a massive impact on your patients, particularly for longer treatments, like endo or implant work. A chair that maximises comfort with soft, seamless or luxury upholstery and adjusts to their shape so everything feels supported, makes the treatment experience much more palatable. A nervous patient will appreciate a smooth-moving chair, like one with hydraulic fully adjustable speed control, so that there are no unexpected jolts.

Hygienic – A chair that allows you to maximise hygiene is key in reducing the risk of cross-contamination across the practice. Foot control pedals allow you to keep your hands away from chair controls, which are more open to bacteria; automatic flushing systems help keep the treatment area clean and seamless upholstery will aid easy, thorough cleaning.

Aesthetics – Once you’ve found the right combination of design and features to suit you, your teams and your patients’ needs, start having fun with the colour and aesthetics of the chair. Remember, you will be looking at your dental chair every working day for years to come, and it will be the first thing your patients see as they enter the room. Calming blue, restful green, warm mandarin… let your dental chair set the tone for your working day!

Find your Belmont chair and choose from a fantastic selection of colours to suit you and your practice here

Belmont equipment advice after lockdown

You might be wondering what you should do with your treatment centre before re-opening your practice or is there any protocol that you should be following. We are sharing with you 8 Simple Steps on how to protect your dental equipment when leaving unused for long periods. Please read carefully prior to taking any action.

If complete shutdown for an unspecified period of time is imminent take off the clean water bottle and tip any residue water away and put the bottle back on empty. After removing the couplings and handpieces from the delivery system hold the hoses over a bucket and press the flush button or run the automatic flush if your unit has one. It’s important remembering while flushing to press the syringe buttons in order to release any trapped water and continue to run the flush until the handpiece hoses run dry.

Do not forget to clean your suction hoses and spittoon with your recommended suction cleaner. Then run water through the hoses to make sure any residue left in the hoses is diluted down.

Make sure the suction pump is switched on before cleaning the hoses.

When the system is completely dry and the suction hoses cleaned switch the main chair switch off and any chair isolator in the room “turn off”.

If all the treatment centres in the practice are to be shutdown for a period of time make sure the staff turn off the compressor and the suction pump.

If you are concerned about shutting down your equipment call your equipment dealer to help you run through this process safely. They will always be happy to help and advise at this difficult time.

When the time comes to return the dental treatment centre back to full use, please be aware that you will need to test your waterlines as per your normal CQC protocol. This action is essential part of the process as you want to check that you don’t have any biofilm build-up during the period of stagnation.